Strange PC Shut-Off Problem

[atn2002]

About once a month my computer will start acting up. It will begin
shutting off randomly for a few days and then be perfectly fine and
solid for a few weeks until it starts it's "time of the month" again.
I'm thinking the PSU but it's just strange to me that it's not
constant. Any one have any idea's?

Windows XP Home SP2
Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2ghz)
DFI NF2 Infinity w/Soundstorm
1GB DDR400 (2x512mb)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Raptor 74GB 10,000rpm (SATA)
Cavalier 160gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
Deskstar 60gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
Maxtor 40gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
LG 16x DVD+/-WR (USB2.0)
Epson Stylus CX5400
Enermax 350watt PSU
Logitech DiNovo Laser (Keyboard/Mouse)
[Kerio Personal Firewall - AVG Free]

 

[DaveW]

Your PSU is UNDERPOWERED for the number of devices that you are running in
your computer case.

 

[Paul]

Your PSU is UNDERPOWERED for the number of devices that you are running in
your computer case.

Perhaps if the original poster would post what is written on
the label on the side of the PSU, it would be easier to judge
that. I tried to look up an Enermax 350W, but the numbers
listed for one 350W supply, were unbelievably good. Best to
copy the info off the side of the PSU and then judge.

The DFI board draws processor power from +12V. A 3200+ is
roughly 60W, and at 90% conversion efficiency on Vcore, that
is (60W/12V)*(1/0.90) = [email protected]. The video card uses less
than 1A on +12V (and 5.5A on the +5V) while gaming. Four disks
would be 8 amps on +12V during spinup (20 seconds during POST).
In the desktop, the +12V current for the four disks drops
to a bit more than 2 amps. Allow maybe 0.5 amps for fans.
The DVD draws motor current while media is present.

That doesn't look to be an overpowering load.

AthlonXP motherboards should have some kind of mechanism to
detect an overheating CPU. Some motherboards use a small eight
pin chip, which connects to the thermal diode inside the CPU.
If that chip is malfunctioning, or the threshold on the chip
has been set quite low by accident, that could cause random
(heat related) shutdowns.

Get a copy of MBM5 or Speedfan (almico.com) and monitor
voltages and temperatures. Perhaps looking at the output of
the hardware monitor, while using the system, will hint
at the source of the problem.

Paul

About once a month my computer will start acting up. It will begin
shutting off randomly for a few days and then be perfectly fine and
solid for a few weeks until it starts it's "time of the month" again.
I'm thinking the PSU but it's just strange to me that it's not
constant. Any one have any idea's?

Windows XP Home SP2
Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2ghz)
DFI NF2 Infinity w/Soundstorm
1GB DDR400 (2x512mb)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Raptor 74GB 10,000rpm (SATA)
Cavalier 160gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
Deskstar 60gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
Maxtor 40gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
LG 16x DVD+/-WR (USB2.0)
Epson Stylus CX5400
Enermax 350watt PSU
Logitech DiNovo Laser (Keyboard/Mouse)
[Kerio Personal Firewall - AVG Free]

 

[atn2002]

Oops, it's actually only a Enermax 300watt EG301P-VB

SpeedFan says:
VCOREA: 1.63V
VCOREB: 1.49V
+3.3V: 3.28V
+5V: 4.95V
+12V: 11.98V

-12V: -12.69V
-5V: 0.53V
+5VSB: 5.43V
VBAT: 3.14V

My temperatures are excellent 34C Case, 45C CPU and less than 40C for
all the hard-drives.

I don't know what is good for voltages based on that so your help is
very appreciated!

Andrew

 

[atn2002]

PS: The DVD Burner runs on it's own power-adapter

 

[Paul]

Oops, it's actually only a Enermax 300watt EG301P-VB

SpeedFan says:
VCOREA: 1.63V
VCOREB: 1.49V
+3.3V: 3.28V
+5V: 4.95V
+12V: 11.98V

-12V: -12.69V
-5V: 0.53V
+5VSB: 5.43V
VBAT: 3.14V

My temperatures are excellent 34C Case, 45C CPU and less than 40C for
all the hard-drives.

I don't know what is good for voltages based on that so your help is
very appreciated!

Andrew

http://www.eprom.com/home/Power Supply/300wps.html

3.3V@28A 5V@30A 12V@15A -5V@1A -12V@1A [email protected]
3.3V&5V to 170W max, total for all 300W max

I could see maybe 12V@12A load during spinup, and
12V@9A while gaming, so the 12V@15A should be
enough.

Your voltage readings look good, all except the -5V.
Maybe it is reading -5.3V ? In any case, the motherboard
won't be using the -5V (there is no particular reason
for it to need -5V). So the only reason to be disturbed
by that reading, is if the power supply actually has
a -5V output, and we use the oddness of that reading
to imply the power supply has some kind of problem.

Of course, power supplies do age, and they can exhibit
weakness (no longer able to deliver rated amps). But
I don't see anything here that is indicative of that.

You might examine the motherboard capacitors. Those
are the cylinders with plastic sleeves on them. If
the tops are bulged or there is a brown stain, where
a brown liquid dried, underneath the capacitors,
it could be you have bad caps. A visual inspection
is all you need, to get some idea whether the
motherboard has become "ripe".

That leaves whatever overheat protection method is
used by the motherboard, as a possible culprit.
AthlonXP motherboards had protection methods fitted
to the boards, for the more modern motherboards.
My motherboard uses a Winbond chip to measure the
diode temperature, and in fact MBM5 can read the
current diode temperature via the SMBUS. Other
motherboards may have a protection method, but
without an interface on it (as something like
that would be cheaper to manufacture). It would
be difficult to debug a problem with that protection
feature, because the protection circuit could be
at fault, or the thermal diode in the CPU could
be bad or flaky.

Paul

 

[atn2002]

Thanks for the help! I do know caps, I've worked a lot with sound
equipment ;-) I've gone through a couple mobo's with blown caps
(coincidentally both nForce2 with the same PSU) so I was sure to check
for those telltale signs straight away.

I've got an Arctic Cooling ATI VGA Silencer 2 heatsink on the 9800PRO
which is very hot to the touch. I aimed a fan on the card towards the
heatsink's intake and rigged up another fan at the back of the computer
(The VGA Silencer blows air out the back of a second card slot) to help
pull air out the back of the video card. That seems to have made an
improvement on the heat and I haven't had any shutdowns since tonight,
but that's not really saying much due to the randomness of this
behaviour. It's a Micky Mouse job but fortunately my PC is well hidden
and I only need this system to last until my upgrades to coincide with
Windows Vista this year (we hope) ;-)

So if the problem persists I take it that it could be because the
-0.53V was NOT a typo......

 

[atn2002]

Thanks for the help! I do know caps, I've worked a lot with sound
equipment ;-) I've gone through a couple mobo's with blown caps
(coincidentally both nForce2 with the same PSU) so I was sure to check
for those telltale signs straight away.

I've got an Arctic Cooling ATI VGA Silencer 2 heatsink on the 9800PRO
which is very hot to the touch. I aimed a fan on the card towards the
heatsink's intake and rigged up another fan at the back of the computer

(The VGA Silencer blows air out the back of a second card slot) to help

pull air out the back of the video card. That seems to have made an
improvement on the heat and I haven't had any shutdowns since tonight,
but that's not really saying much due to the randomness of this
behaviour. It's a Micky Mouse job but fortunately my PC is well hidden

and I only need this system to last until my upgrades to coincide with
Windows Vista this year (we hope) ;-)


So if the problem persists I take it that it could be because the
-5V @ 0.53V was NOT a typo......

 

[atn2002]

Thanks for the help! I do know caps, I've worked a lot with sound
equipment ;-) I've gone through a couple mobo's with blown caps
(coincidentally both nForce2 with the same PSU) so I was sure to check
for those telltale signs straight away.

I've got an Arctic Cooling ATI VGA Silencer 2 heatsink on the 9800PRO
which is very hot to the touch. I aimed a fan on the card towards the
heatsink's intake and rigged up another fan at the back of the computer

(The VGA Silencer blows air out the back of a second card slot) to help
pull air out the back of the video card. That seems to have made an
improvement on the heat and I haven't had any shutdowns since tonight,
but that's not really saying much due to the randomness of this
behaviour. It's a Micky Mouse job but fortunately my PC is well hidden
and I only need this system to last until my upgrades to coincide with
Windows Vista this year (we hope) ;-)

So if the problem persists I take it that it could be because the
-5V @ 0.53V was NOT a typo......

 

[dawg]

I was about to metion that. Too many devices. They probably draw too much
power at once every so often and boom.freeze or shutdown. Might as well
check for dust bunnies in your case too.

Your PSU is UNDERPOWERED for the number of devices that you are running in
your computer case.

--
DaveW

----------------

About once a month my computer will start acting up. It will begin
shutting off randomly for a few days and then be perfectly fine and
solid for a few weeks until it starts it's "time of the month" again.
I'm thinking the PSU but it's just strange to me that it's not
constant. Any one have any idea's?

Windows XP Home SP2
Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2ghz)
DFI NF2 Infinity w/Soundstorm
1GB DDR400 (2x512mb)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Raptor 74GB 10,000rpm (SATA)
Cavalier 160gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
Deskstar 60gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
Maxtor 40gb 7,200rpm (IDE)
LG 16x DVD+/-WR (USB2.0)
Epson Stylus CX5400
Enermax 350watt PSU
Logitech DiNovo Laser (Keyboard/Mouse)
[Kerio Personal Firewall - AVG Free]

 

[Paul]

Thanks for the help! I do know caps, I've worked a lot with sound
equipment ;-) I've gone through a couple mobo's with blown caps
(coincidentally both nForce2 with the same PSU) so I was sure to check
for those telltale signs straight away.

I've got an Arctic Cooling ATI VGA Silencer 2 heatsink on the 9800PRO
which is very hot to the touch. I aimed a fan on the card towards the
heatsink's intake and rigged up another fan at the back of the computer

(The VGA Silencer blows air out the back of a second card slot) to help
pull air out the back of the video card. That seems to have made an
improvement on the heat and I haven't had any shutdowns since tonight,
but that's not really saying much due to the randomness of this
behaviour. It's a Micky Mouse job but fortunately my PC is well hidden
and I only need this system to last until my upgrades to coincide with
Windows Vista this year (we hope) ;-)

So if the problem persists I take it that it could be because the
-5V @ 0.53V was NOT a typo......

If you are naturally curious, you might want to investigate what
is going on there. Having a cheap voltmeter available would allow
you to probe the ATX power connector while the system is running.
Then, you'll have some idea if the -5V is at that value or not.
(Just in case your hardware monitor chip is acting up.)

If you had another motherboard, you could try connecting the
power supply to it, and see if the -5V still reads 0.53. And the
vice versa case, of applying some other power supply to the
flaky system, to see if the output on -5V is still strange
or is normal.

A low value like that, can be the result of loading. The -5V output
on supplies is not usually very powerful, so it wouldn't take
much of a load to crush the output. If the motherboard detects
overcurrent on all the outputs, it could actually be the
current being drawn from the PSU that is causing it to shut off.

Maybe a little equipment swapping will shed some more light on
the problem.

Paul

 

[atn2002]

Bought a new power-suuply, gave it some time to see if it would happen
again; No more shut-downs, it appears that it was indeed the
power-supply that was the problem.

 

[someone]

Bought a new power-suuply, gave it some time to see if it would happen
again; No more shut-downs, it appears that it was indeed the
power-supply that was the problem.

And a Thank you to the person that suggested the PSU is in order !.

 

[atn2002]

I'm back!!!!! Months later...new power supply seemed to work for a
while, but the shutdowns eventually came back. Tried (not bought)
different ram, different harddrives, different video card, etc. The
only thing left is CPU and Mobo. The mobo doesn't show blown caps.
Underclocking everything made no difference. One thing that can't be
underclocked, and is making extreme heat, is the southbridge...so now
I've got a fan on that...waiting to see what happens (and browsing eBay
for a southbridge heatsink)...I'm not sure that's the issue, but I just
thought I'd bring this post back until I reach a conclusion, and share
my very frustrating experience in case it may benefit someone
else.....I'll get back to ya'll when some time has passed on this
attempt of a fix...

 

[atn2002]

I'm back!!!!! A month later...new power supply seemed to work for a
while, but the shutdowns eventually came back. Tried (not bought)
different ram, different harddrives, different video card, etc. The
only thing left is CPU and Mobo. The mobo doesn't show blown caps.
Underclocking everything made no difference. One thing that can't be
underclocked, and is making extreme heat, is the southbridge...so now
I've got a fan on that...waiting to see what happens (and browsing eBay

for a southbridge heatsink)...I'm not sure that's the issue, but I just

thought I'd bring this post back until I reach a conclusion, and share
my very frustrating experience in case it may benefit someone
else.....I'll get back to ya'll when some time has passed on this
attempt of a fix...

 

[Paul]

I'm back!!!!! A month later...new power supply seemed to work for a
while, but the shutdowns eventually came back. Tried (not bought)
different ram, different harddrives, different video card, etc. The
only thing left is CPU and Mobo. The mobo doesn't show blown caps.
Underclocking everything made no difference. One thing that can't be
underclocked, and is making extreme heat, is the southbridge...so now
I've got a fan on that...waiting to see what happens (and browsing eBay

for a southbridge heatsink)...I'm not sure that's the issue, but I just

thought I'd bring this post back until I reach a conclusion, and share
my very frustrating experience in case it may benefit someone
else.....I'll get back to ya'll when some time has passed on this
attempt of a fix...

Maybe it is time to find a different motherboard.
Or get the current motherboard replaced under warranty.
I don't see the processor being the source of the problem.

Paul

 

[atn2002]

It was a challenge, but I think so...I cleaned out a layer of dust
built up on the fan and it seems to have stayed stable all day. Mind
you, the temperature reading was only around 50c, now closer to 40c.
Either way, I don't think that makes a difference, especially since I
underclocked it before which didn't fix the problem. That being said,
perhaps the temperature diode thingy is malfuntioning, but that's a
long shot. Who knows, I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes
things just can't be fixed...only replaced...The End!

 

[atn2002]

OK, not the end. The end is that it hasn't shut off once since I aimed
another fan toward the CPU. Temperature readings never changed much
but suddenly the PC is like a rock. Must have been a cap overheating
or bad temperature sensor! Crazy if you ask me...looks like I am going
to be able to hold out on my overdue upgrades until Windows Vista is
released. Just thought someone might care to know